


Genie in a Bottle

by Canadiantardis



Series: Plance AU Week 2018 [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 09:10:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14352414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: Plance AU Week Day 4: Lore





	Genie in a Bottle

There are stories about djinn that Lance grew up with. Stories of creatures with the power to grant wishes to whoever finds them first, but he also heard tales of the side-effects. People who suddenly are struck dead after getting what they always wanted, people going through horrible transformations that villages don’t recognize until it was too late.

Learning about djinn both fascinated the young man and frightened him. His Mama was adamant about telling him not to touch things he didn’t know where they came from, often threatening to ground him if he tried anything funny.

So, when he went for a swim one late summer afternoon, he didn’t know what to do when he heard the soft *thinks* of a glass bottle being smacked by something, only to see an opaque ornate bottle half-buried in the sand.

He approached it cautiously, wondering what was smacking the bottle to make that sound. Although it was opaque, the inside was filled with something dark green, making it hard to see what could be in it.

“ _Help! Help me!”_ A small voice cried, seemingly coming from the bottle.

Lance stopped mid-step, eyes wide. _Was that?_

_“Please help me!”_ The bottle was smacked a few more times. _“I know someone’s out there, please!”_

“What?” Lance finally spoke, looking at the bottle incredulously.

_“I’ll grant any wish, please, let me out of here!”_ The voice sounded desperate, and Lance felt compassion run through him.

He bent down and picked up the bottle by the neck, turning it round in his hands. It was a very pretty bottle, with green gems embedded into the glass. Lance wondered what function such a bottle could be if a djinn wasn’t apparently trapped in it. _Maybe all weirdly pretty bottles were homes for them_ , he thought.

“ _Just, just rub a side like you’re trying to get dirt off it._ ” Something about the voice sounded embarrassed speaking.

Lance complied, and green smoke spilled out of bottle at an alarming rate. Startled, Lance dropped the bottle back onto the sand, but it didn’t stop the smoke from spilling out until a short profile began to take form.

All it took was for Lance to blink and the smoke went from an outline of a person, to a green-tinted young woman was in front of him. She had amber eyes that reminded him of honey, and light brown hair that framed her face. She had pale green skin, like she had been soaking in a green bath for several years and it seeped into her body, and she wore dark green clothing that looked to be made of silk.

“Thank you, thank you!” The young woman cried, hugging Lance tightly. “I wasn’t sure I would have had to stay trapped for another millennia. Thank you so much.”

“Uh, yeah, no problem.” He didn’t know how to react to seeing a girl that had once been smoke in a bottle hugging him and thanking him for just rubbing the bottle, much less realizing she was a djinn.

She pulled away, looking sheepish. “Oh, yeah, I guess you’d want an explanation, huh?” At his delayed nod, she continued. “Well, I should introduce myself. I don’t really have a name, because each master likes to call me different things, but a few common ones are Katie and Pidge. As you could probably guess, I’m a djinn, and for the past several decades I had been trapped in my bottle after my last master tried to… Tried to…”

Her eyes went round and she looked stricken. Lance couldn’t stand it when anyone looked distressed, and he spoke quickly. “You don’t have to tell me everything, uh, Katie. If you don’t feel up to telling me.”

The djinn girl, Katie, was slow to respond, but a brief smile appeared on her face and she took a breath, nodding. “Thank you, master. Let’s just say my last master hurt me in a way that no djinn or human should go through.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and while Lance was curious, he didn’t want to pry.

“Anyway, the rules for being my master are as follows: I can only grant 3 wishes, no loopholes around that. You cannot ask for more wishes or something like that.” She counted the rules on her fingers. “I cannot make someone rise from the dead, nor can I make someone fall in love with you with magic. Leave that kind of sorcery for witches and warlocks. And most big wishes comes with a price. The reason most people don’t wish for world peace is because that results in genocides that just brings back war, and the same for helping the poor and other good person attempts. The world needs balance unless you enjoy chaos.” Katie shrugged. “And that’s about it. Any questions?”

“What if I don’t ever make any wishes?” Lance surprised her with that question.

She opened her mouth to reply but can’t seem to think of an answer. “I… Do you not have anything you wished you had?”

“I do, but my Mama always said I’m better off working towards my goals, not let it come to me on a silver platter.”

“I, hmm. I suppose that’s okay. I’m still tied to you until you give me your third and final wish.” She said, looking unsure. “I’ve never had someone ask me that… Or do that sort of thing.”

“Really?”

“Everyone has a wish. Some of them are small, like basic necessities for their entire life, others big like money or winning a particularly brutal war.” Katie explained, putting her chin between her index finger and thumb, a thoughtful expression on her face. “But, I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to be free without worrying about granting wishes.”

* * *

 

After meeting, Lance brought Katie to his place, because she couldn’t leave his side because he was her master now. He found it a little awkward having a girl in his apartment who couldn’t leave him unless he made three wishes, and he didn’t want to take an easy way out of hard work.

Over the next three years, there were many times the word ‘wish’ was on the tip of his tongue as frustration set in, but the now-familiar warmth of a green-skinned young woman kept him from saying anything out loud. Instead, he would ask for help, someone to talk things through and weigh the pros and cons of any important decision he felt he needed to make.

Katie was a bright woman. It was like her brain was a living computer, with more historical facts than could be found on a single Wikipedia article. She helped around the house when she was bored, but give her something electrical or mechanical and she could dismantle it and rebuild it better than ever. After the first year of living together, she had already built herself a little robot Lance was able to name Rover.

Initially, she said Rover was to help Lance, but he refused outright, telling Katie since she made it, Rover was hers. The look in her eyes almost knocked him out flat, admiration and joy lighting up her face.

* * *

 

It was the little things, later down the line, that Lance realized he had feelings for the djinn girl. Her laugh, her eyes, her petite stature that made her look like a faerie. Her smarts put his degrees to shame, because her knowledge knew no bounds while he had barely passed with good grades, and yet there were times when Katie wasn’t as good as he was.

Like with games. Katie was rubbish at games, especially against Lance in any multiplayer game where they were against each other.

During one match the two played, Katie was leaning against Lance with a concentrated look, and for a moment, he couldn’t focus on the game, allowing her to get a head start on points.

There were other moments like that, where Lance caught himself looking at Katie for no reason at all, and yet every time he did, he noticed new things about her. She had a light dusting of freckles on her face, her teeth were too perfect that he always misses the chipped fang when she smiled, her warmth when they sat on the couch together, practically cuddling.

“Has anyone ever wished for their djinn to be free?” Lance asked one night, laying on the bed with his hands under his head.

Katie paused, a hairbrush in her hair, to look at Lance carefully. “A few, but most don’t phrase it correctly, and age catches up to us if we become mortal.”

“Has anyone asked to become a djinn themselves?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned at him. “Why are you asking?”

“I…” Lance mulled over his words. “I want to be with you.”

“With me? But we are…?” Katie looked confused.

Lance shook his head, sitting up. “I mean, not because you’re tied to me. We’ve been doing this for three years now, and I feel like… I don’t know, there could be more between us. I want to be with you.”

Katie froze, her face darkening in colour as a blush appeared, and she put the hairbrush down. She looked away from Lance, mumbling something that he couldn’t hear for several seconds before looking back at him. “Depending on how you phrase your wish, it should be possible.” She said slowly.

Lance beamed, and before she could say anything more, he let his first wish out, “I wish you and I can be djinn, together forever.”

Katie gasped, a hand flicking out as if she had no control of it. Smoke gathered in the room, filling the room until Lance couldn’t see anything.

**Author's Note:**

> I had been wanting to make a djinn au for a while. Been listening to Christina Aguilera's song on repeat.  
> Not sure what I was trying to do with it, but might continue this later one


End file.
